Weekend Box Office Report: February 12-14, 2016

Deadpool blows away box office records!

Ryan Reynolds' greatest wish finally came true in a huge way this Valentine's Day weekend as DEADPOOL opened with a killer $135 million!

The madcap motormouthed mercenary demolished a number of records, including biggest February opening (obliterating the $85.1 million opening of last year's FIFTY SHADES OF GREY) and biggest opening for an R-rated release, pulverizing the $91.7 million first weekend of THE MATRIX RELOADED. Its debut weekend also strolled past the former highest domestic total for an R-rated comic adaptation (WANTED's $134.5 million domestic finish).

Even without the benefit of a PG-13 rating, the crimson-clad master of mayhem also scored a bigger opening than anything else in the X-Men franchise (X-MEN: THE LAST STAND is a distant second with $102.7 million). Though it is "only" the seventh-highest debut for a comic book movie, it has already more than doubled its reported $58 million cost (along with some earlier estimates that predicted a $55 million opening weekend).

Aside from Fox (who owns the movie rights to Marvel Comics' mutant population and associated characters) and first-time feature director Tim Miller, certainly nobody is happier with the success than star Ryan Reynolds, who fought for a decade to get the fourth-wall-breaking comic anti-hero into his own solo movie.

DEADPOOL had the biggest opening for anything the actor has appeared in, and its first weekend alone passed the $116.6 million domestic total of his previous comic adaptation GREEN LANTERN. Its opening also stomped the guts out of the last time Reynolds portrayed a comic character in an R-rated movie — BLADE TRINITY started out with $16 million and finished with $52.4 million.

While the screwball character's fanbase flocked to cinemas for chaos and quips (and the canny marketing lured the curious), critics also appreciated DEADPOOL's violent antics with an 84% average on Rotten Tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, a sequel is already in the works.

KUNG FU PANDA 3 dropped to second place with $19.6 million after two weekends on top, and may cross the $100 million mark once tomorrow's President's Day crowd is included in its domestic total.

Opening in third was the new R-rated comedy HOW TO BE SINGLE with $18.7 million. Fronted by funny ladies Leslie Mann, Alison Brie and Rebel Wilson (along with FIFTY SHADES OF GREY co-star Dakota Johnson), the $38 million romcom had more box office impact than the apparently-not-anticipated return of Ben Stiller's clueless model. ZOOLANDER 2 opened in fourth with $15.6 million — just a perfectly styled hair above the $15.5 million debut of the original ZOOLANDER back in 2001.

THE REVENANT is still dragging itself along, now in fifth with $6.9 million and nearly $160 million domestic. The Coen brothers' Hollywood comedy HAIL, CAESAR! dipped from second to sixth place with $6.5 million, down 42% from its opening last week.

In seventh was STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS with another $6.1 million and a spectacular $914.8 million domestic total. It seems unlikely to reach $1 billion, although a re-release before EPISODE VIII might resolve that "problem".

The latest Nicholas Sparks romance THE CHOICE got a slight boost from Valentine's Day weekend with $5.2 million, a drop of only 13% from last weekend's modest opening, while RIDE ALONG 2 and the horror flick THE BOY closed out the list.

Outside the chart, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES headed to the grave after a single week in the Top 10, taking DIRTY GRANDPA and THE FINEST HOURS with it. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's latest polemic WHERE TO INVADE NEXT opened on 300 screens for just over $1 million.

Next weekend has the Jesse Owens biopic RACE, the biblical action movie RISEN and the festival-fave horror indie THE WITCH.

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